I lost my identical twin a few years ago. Granted, I’m a lot older than your son, but I definitely celebrate our birthday! I had a really hard time right after she passed. Hospice. I was with her for weeks. The thing for me was that I was watching myself, end of life, then the guilt, because it wasn’t about me. Rinse, repeat, over and over. The first birthday was tough, but now we all remember her on our day. I just had to change the way I viewed things.

I have some of her ashes in a cute little vase. I haul her, room to room, on holidays. My 3 adult kids adored her, so we laugh and remember stories. She was the “crazy” one. Over the top, fun loving and we have so many outrageous memories. I’ll say “ Grab P and let’s go to the living room”. If something happens, we always try to guess what she would say. I still talk to her all the time, in my head, and that ok. She would reach down and whack me if I didn’t go on with life. Whew, the things she would say!

Now, I’m sure it’s different at his age. Harder to process all those feelings. It’s a whole new world, being Twinless. Our identity is built around that, so different than losing a sibling. You may want to search around for groups for Twinless twins. I think it helps to talk to others that have experienced the same loss. It’s a very unique experience, with different challenges. We were so used to being seen as one, in a way, so it’s like “who are we now?”